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Nehru the Damaja posted:I'm gonna run LMoP on Roll20 with a couple friends and some randos (hopefully including two to three new players.) I've got a handful of web sites to look at but is there anything you folks can suggest to either spice it up or just make it more my own, especially without alienating anyone new? Idea, both to take the edge off Goblin Arrows but also to make it feel like a bigger deal: Smart goblins. Goblins have 10 INT. The average adventurer probably dumped it to 8. If goblins are smarter than the average adventurer, they should be able to play smart and scare the poo poo out of the players. But it's an introductory adventure and we don't want to massacre the players. So we'll dial it back to slings. It stands to reason anyway that smart goblins know a dead adventurer is worth only what he's carrying. A living one is worth a ransom. I've run a one-shot a few times where smart kenku were a big hit. It sounds like fun to remind players that goblins aren't dumb and might be smarter than they are.
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May 18, 2020 16:44
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Tonight's delve back into Chult didn't have too much fun stuff until one encounter at the end of the evening. "There's something over there, I'm going to check it out." "Can you see in the dark?" "..." *sigh and cast light on a stone* "try not to die, I'll keep watch" "I cast silent image about 20 feet in front of me before speaking up so if it goes south I may have a chance to run" "Roll stealth. Nope, they see you right away." "You were so insistent that the bard should do the talking." "Hey, I said I didn't want to be the spokesman, not that I wouldn't want to interrupt." "I can't believe that worked!" "The thing about a d20 is that they can botch a roll as easily as we can." "That was fun! We all got a turn to screw it up."
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May 19, 2020 03:57
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I've got a concept for a Warlock which disguises their magic as the effects of (non-functional) firearms. The details of the campaign setting will determine whether or not firearms exist and are known, or if it'll just be a strange "new invention". I would of course, consult with the DM to see if this character would be a good fit with the setting. Either way, the character won't be shooting actual bullets/balls with the weapons, and if pinch comes to shove, they could use the magic without having the firearms; they're just a disguise for the actual source of the power. (I know, I know, that might seem stupid in a setting where people fling around all sorts of magic, but I find this concept interesting.) I’d see if you could get the Hexblade to work. I made a Forge Cleric that used his gun to cast spells that was a lot of fun until he died
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May 19, 2020 11:17
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So my DM is running White Plume Mountain tomorrow as a one off. I'm fairly new to d&d (only one character under my belt). I'd like to play a professional duelist a la Colours in the Steel but am overwhelmed by options. I'd like to play a nonhuman, and every sourcebook, unearthed arcana etc is on the table. We also get an uncommon and a rare magic item. Any suggestions for direction to investigate. We have a cleric and a wizard in the party plus one undecided.
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May 19, 2020 13:55
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Flea Bargain posted:So my DM is running White Plume Mountain tomorrow as a one off. I'm fairly new to d&d (only one character under my belt). I'd like to play a professional duelist a la Colours in the Steel but am overwhelmed by options. I'd like to play a nonhuman, and every sourcebook, unearthed arcana etc is on the table. We also get an uncommon and a rare magic item. Any suggestions for direction to investigate. We have a cleric and a wizard in the party plus one undecided. I don’t know that book but my gut reaction is swashbuckler.
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May 19, 2020 13:57
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Kaysette posted:I don’t know that book but my gut reaction is swashbuckler. Thanks! I'll take a look. I'm not trying to metagame the module tbh, if this character goes well I might retire my old one since he's a bit boring, so I'd like to make them well rounded.
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May 19, 2020 14:01
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I have a few possible characters in mind, so I have a few random questions. 1. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to take Ability Score Increases instead of Feats for the modifier increase, right, but do some builds have exceptions? For example, if I'm making an Eldritch Knight Fighter, it seems like I would have a hard time without taking Warcaster to let me cast while wielding a weapon and shield. 2. You can choose between an Arcane Focus or a component pouch. Is that just for flavor, or does it matter? For example, the component of Chromatic Orb requires a diamond worth 50 gp. Is that spell unusable if you select arcane focus instead of component pouch? I'm considering making an Abjuration-specialist Wizard, so I have a few questions about Arcane Ward. 3a. The description says that it appears the first time you cast an Abjuration spell of 1st level or higher, and lasts - even at 0 HP - until you finish a long rest. As written, that means it remains up even if you go unconscious, correct? 3b. Alarm is a first level abjuration which can be cast as a ritual. The description of the Arcane Ward does not say you need to expend a spell slot to get the ward. So if the first thing you do after waking up is spending 10-11 minutes casting Alarm on something, that grants you the ward, so you can have it in existence almost all the time? 3c. At 6th level you get Projected Ward, which lets you use your reaction to interject the ward on a target. But that's only as a reaction, and after that, the effect of the ward applies to the wizard again, right? 4. The spells your Warlock patron unlocks are ones you COULD learn, but they still count against your maximum spells known, so you would need to replace one of your other ones to use them, correct? Open Marriage Night posted:I’d see if you could get the Hexblade to work. I made a Forge Cleric that used his gun to cast spells that was a lot of fun until he died Yeah, that sounds about right, if the DM would allow a tweak to the wording of the Hex Warrior feature to add proficiency with firearms (instead of shields), and also allow Pact of the Blade to apply to firearms. I'll outright ignore the flavor text on Hexblade which says your pact is with an entity of the Shadowfell. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 16:09 on May 19, 2020 |
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May 19, 2020 14:56
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I have a few possible characters in mind, so I have a few random questions. 1. sharpshooter is the first example that comes to mind. it depends on your class though, fighter gets more ASI and is more free to take feats. 2. pouches are for flavour because in older editions it was assumed all wizards had bat guano on them at all times, and though 5e wants to move away from this they are keeping it as a legacy option
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May 19, 2020 15:16
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The component pouch, focus, holy symbol, etc. are all sub-ins for the material components of spells that do not cost money. You still need the 50GP for Prismatic Orb no matter what kind of item you use. Conversely, as long as you have your spellcasting item, you are assumed to have the material components for any spell that do not have listed GP costs. Technically your DM can intercede and say things like "bat guano is actually super-rare here, so you're going to need to put some effort into finding it if you want to cast Fireball", but the default is that you have every single little scrap of miscellaneous trash that most spells use. The abjuration ward does not say the spell has to use a spell slot, so a ritual would work. This assumes of course that your party's willing to wait around 10 minutes while you ward up. You're correct, the sixth level reaction does not permanently stick the ward on someone else. It says you can use the ward to absorb "that damage" (from a specific attack).
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May 19, 2020 15:39
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I have a few possible characters in mind, so I have a few random questions. 1. Well if you're not set on being sword+board (which is not a bad thing at all and you should not take this as a criticism of being a shield user!) you can use a two-handed weapon and then you don't have any issues because you can just take your hand off your sword to cast spells and there's no restriction on that. If not then yeah you might wanna take warcaster, or just go with a one-handed weapon and no shield until you get around to taking it. 2. Technically there is an extremely minor difference between pouches and focuses: Pouches can be used by anyone, focuses can only be used by casters who have a focus for their spellcasting. For example, RAW, Eldritch Knights can't use arcane focuses, they have to use a component pouch. Also using a focus doesn't preclude you from using costly spell components, because that diamond worth 50g is assumed to not be in your standard kit of components so it wouldn't be in a pouch either, you have to actually have those on hand. (Edit to clarify: Wizards have a specific ability that says "you can use an arcane focus as a focus for spells". Pretty much every spellcaster has this, but not all do (i think basically just fighters?), and if you're some kind of multiclass spellcaster who might have spells from different sources, your focus doesn't automatically work for the other class.) tl;dr: they're basically the same unless you're doing something weird or you're an eldritch knight I guess. 3a. I dunno, yeah I think so. 3b. Probably, sure? It's kind of a whatever issue because you get it basically all the time anyway, any time you cast a spell (including mage armor which you're probably using as a wizard) but yeah you can get a couple HP without a spell slot I suppose. 3c. It doesn't say anything about putting the ward on the target, it just says your ward takes the damage instead of them, so yes you get to keep your ward. 4. Yeah, it still takes up one of your spells known spots, you don't get to know it for free. They're just additional spells added to your list of spells you COULD take. Glagha fucked around with this message at 15:43 on May 19, 2020 |
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May 19, 2020 15:39
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The Alert Feat (which I want to take for my human bounty hunter for flavor reasons even if it's not optimal) says "you can't be surprised while you are conscious". Does that mean you can sense an ambush before it's triggered? Because most campaigns don't end up lasting too long, I assume that it's probably a poor idea to have my Half-Orc Monk take three levels of Barbarian for Totem of the Bear, so I should just have his flaw of uncontrollable anger be a flaw and not a mechanical thing. TooMuchAbstraction posted:The component pouch, focus, holy symbol, etc. are all sub-ins for the material components of spells that do not cost money. You still need the 50GP for Prismatic Orb no matter what kind of item you use. So because Chromatic Orb has component with a listed cost, I still need the 50 GP diamond with a focus even though the component is not consumed when casting the spell. Okay, thanks, that's what I wanted to be clarified, as that could influence which spells to take. It's fine if the Eldritch Knight needs a component pouch. I was thinking of for using a focus instead of a pouch for the wizard. TooMuchAbstraction posted:The abjuration ward does not say the spell has to use a spell slot, so a ritual would work. This assumes of course that your party's willing to wait around 10 minutes while you ward up. Sure, whether or not there's time to cast it depends on circumstances. When there is no rush, though, the extra buffer to health seems like a good thing to do whenever possible, because fights and ambushes happen. After a while, it can be shortened to "I do my usual ten-minute ritual to cast Alarm and activate my Arcane Ward." Glagha posted:1. Well if you're not set on being sword+board (which is not a bad thing at all and you should not take this as a criticism of being a shield user!) you can use a two-handed weapon and then you don't have any issues because you can just take your hand off your sword to cast spells and there's no restriction on that. If not then yeah you might wanna take warcaster, or just go with a one-handed weapon and no shield until you get around to taking it. Sure, any of those options, I suppose. I'd only need to go without the shield for one level.
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May 19, 2020 16:28
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:The Alert Feat (which I want to take for my human bounty hunter for flavor reasons even if it's not optimal) says "you can't be surprised while you are conscious". Does that mean you can sense an ambush before it's triggered? it should say "Surprised" instead of "surprised" because that leads to weird interpretations of like your character being emotionless in response to shocking news or whatever. surprised(the condition) means if the enemies jump your party everyone rolls initiative and those who are surprised miss their first turn. the alert feat would remove this, meaning you could act normally on your first turn while the rest of your party is still surprised E: alert also gives +5 to initiative, which means you are almost always going first too. it makes for fun moments of sneak attacking the would be ambusher on many rogue or ranger builds(especially gloom stalker)
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May 19, 2020 16:42
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Planning on introducing some slightly altered weapon mechanics into my game. One of them, the main gauche, has an entry in the Beyond Damage Dice book as a special ability from dual-wielding a rapier and a dagger. I think I'd like to simplify this and just have an offhand parrying dagger that gives a flat +1 to AC. I'm not sure if I should really bother doing anything to make this not just a straight upgrade from a regular dagger (apart from a slight upcharge for the crossguard) or just say hey, maybe daggers suck and that's fine? Only thing I can immediately think of as a penalty is the throw distance. Also thinking about how I would implement a pavis. My current thought is that it would work as a shield would, but as an action you can plant it down to act as cover. I personally would allow this to synergize with a Thief's Fast Hands for some shenanigans, but that would require them finding a source of shield proficiency.
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May 19, 2020 16:53
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You're a Flameskull: the flaming undead skull of a long-dead wizard. You've failed at your programming and have reverted to autonomy. What do you do? What do you desire? Do you just float around screaming? Try to learn more spells? Discover who you used to be?
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May 19, 2020 16:58
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Nehru the Damaja posted:You're a Flameskull: the flaming undead skull of a long-dead wizard. You've failed at your programming and have reverted to autonomy. You learn magic and rebuild your power. This is what the eponymous flameskull rulers of Skullport did in canon.
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May 19, 2020 17:14
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Trojan Kaiju posted:Planning on introducing some slightly altered weapon mechanics into my game. One of them, the main gauche, has an entry in the Beyond Damage Dice book as a special ability from dual-wielding a rapier and a dagger. I think I'd like to simplify this and just have an offhand parrying dagger that gives a flat +1 to AC. I'm not sure if I should really bother doing anything to make this not just a straight upgrade from a regular dagger (apart from a slight upcharge for the crossguard) or just say hey, maybe daggers suck and that's fine? Only thing I can immediately think of as a penalty is the throw distance. If it were me I'd probably just treat it like a shield that you can stab people with. Maybe make it ineffective against ranged attacks... or don't, gently caress it.
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May 19, 2020 17:18
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Nehru the Damaja posted:You're a Flameskull: the flaming undead skull of a long-dead wizard. You've failed at your programming and have reverted to autonomy. I think in this situation my goals would be first to retain existence, and second to get a proper body. After that point it depends on who the wizard was and how I feel about that (plus whatever development has happened while getting said body).
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May 19, 2020 17:24
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Nehru the Damaja posted:You're a Flameskull: the flaming undead skull of a long-dead wizard. You've failed at your programming and have reverted to autonomy. i would one of be two things. one) a force for raw chaos, disenfranchised by a world that would cause this to happen to me and confused by society after thousands of years spent guarding a tomb for no reason, it would inspire amassing great power to remove any sense of stability the world has had two) get a badass fuckin golem body with no head so i can be a flaming skull floating above the golem and look cool
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May 19, 2020 17:27
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Accrue power and influence for the purpose of destroying all knowledge of how to create a flameskull. Dickheads aren't going to do this to anybody else on my watch.
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May 19, 2020 17:32
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Just wanted to chime in about fly, because I think it's a managable problem and when you think about why it disrupts encounters it makes you rethink encounters anyway. *It fucks with melee enemies, particularly encounters that are all melee or feature a melee-centric boss. *It fucks with encounters in open fields, though really no more so than 300 yard attacks or whatever. *It fucks with traps and environmental features. *It makes encounters same-y because rather than position or take cover most PCs wihlth flight will just take to the air and do their thing. Having mixed encounters indoors with nonstatic environments is best practice anyway. It will definately still cause some issues but really no more so than invisibility or what have you.
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May 19, 2020 18:32
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The 5e Facebook community owns. 
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May 20, 2020 23:03
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Kaysette posted:The 5e Facebook community owns. If you’re going to post something in a foreign language at least provide a translation.
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May 20, 2020 23:10
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As a Eldritch Knight, is it worth using a Ability Skill Improvement level up to take the War Caster feat, so that if I get an opportunity attack I can use Booming Blade? Or is that too niche to take?
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May 21, 2020 02:01
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SgtSteel91 posted:As a Eldritch Knight, is it worth using a Ability Skill Improvement level up to take the War Caster feat, so that if I get an opportunity attack I can use Booming Blade? It's fine. Lots of folks do that.
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May 21, 2020 02:10
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SgtSteel91 posted:As a Eldritch Knight, is it worth using a Ability Skill Improvement level up to take the War Caster feat, so that if I get an opportunity attack I can use Booming Blade? For fighters specifically you get so many ASI that it's definitely fine to take War Caster both for the opp attack and for Concentration advantage. Make sure you get your weapon ability to 20 well within the expected levels of your character though.
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May 21, 2020 02:13
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Is this the place to celebrate a victory, because tonight my party took down the villainous Imyrith and I am on cloud nine!!!!
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May 21, 2020 06:52
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Trojan Kaiju posted:Planning on introducing some slightly altered weapon mechanics into my game. One of them, the main gauche, has an entry in the Beyond Damage Dice book as a special ability from dual-wielding a rapier and a dagger. I think I'd like to simplify this and just have an offhand parrying dagger that gives a flat +1 to AC. I'm not sure if I should really bother doing anything to make this not just a straight upgrade from a regular dagger (apart from a slight upcharge for the crossguard) or just say hey, maybe daggers suck and that's fine? Only thing I can immediately think of as a penalty is the throw distance. Martial Dagger which can't be thrown effectively/at all, but grants a +1 AC bonus when held by a proficient wielder.
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May 21, 2020 07:38
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Kaysette posted:The 5e Facebook community owns. Is this like one of those pictures meant to evoke the feeling of having a stroke? NickRoweFillea posted:Is this the place to celebrate a victory, because tonight my party took down the villainous Imyrith and I am on cloud nine!!!! Congratulations to them!
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May 21, 2020 11:48
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I, too, am weird about something
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May 21, 2020 12:01
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No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:Martial Dagger which can't be thrown effectively/at all, but grants a +1 AC bonus when held by a proficient wielder. Yeah this. Functionally a worse shield that counts for TWF stuff.
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May 21, 2020 13:03
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I'm thinking of a simple encounter for while my party is traveling, they're level 5 and a solid party: Rogue/fighter (Arcane Archer), Cleric, Barbarian, Warlock and Bard. They've got the equivalent of a +1 weapon and a minor magic item each. Idea is to have them fight (or roleplay their way through) three Hill Giants that were waiting to ineptly ambush the caravan and bully them into giving them booze and goats, only the caravan doesn't carry any, only crafted tools and flour, which pisses off the giants. Now as written 3 Hill Giants are a very deadly encounter for this party, but I just want it to be a shortish break from the roleplaying and story/exposition that will probably take up the rest of the session. Just a bit of action for them to change things up a bit. Here's what I'm planning to make it a bit easier. 1. They're already easy to hit with an AC of 13, lowering that wouldn't do much. They've got a ton of hp though (105) which I'll lower a bit but not too much. Somewhere around 80 sounds good. For one, a giant is supposed to be able to soak up damage, otherwise they wouldn't be giants, and two, the barbarian has a greatsword that does an extra 2d6 damage to huge creatures, which will help them. 2. The Hill Giants will be drunk, giving them disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws. 3. Only one of them has a boulder for a single ranged attack. 4. While waiting for the caravan they got bored, started drinking, and two of them decided to start bullying the third by tossing a goat's head between them that the third was keeping as a snack. They've temporarily forgotten about the shakedown (but when seeing the caravan will stop playing around.) This will allow the party to sneak up on them for a surprise attack, or give them an opening should they try to roleplay their way through. Would that soften them up enough, or even make it too easy? I could of course always adjust the hp back up to 105 should they start going down tooquickly, or fudge a damage roll here or there should they be too hard, but I want to learn how I effectively balance encounters beforehand, instead of relying on tricks like that.
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May 21, 2020 18:17
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I wouldn’t drop the HP. Your group can do solid damage, let them show off. And dropping the HP will make the fight feel less epic. The other ideas are fine. Disadvantage on every attack roll should help keep your party alive. Just make sure your party knows they are attacking with disadvantage for being drunk so the bard will know to use something other than vicious mockery. My prediction is your players will win easily.
nelson fucked around with this message at 19:42 on May 21, 2020 |
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May 21, 2020 19:33
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Taeke posted:I'm thinking of a simple encounter for while my party is traveling, they're level 5 and a solid party: Rogue/fighter (Arcane Archer), Cleric, Barbarian, Warlock and Bard. They've got the equivalent of a +1 weapon and a minor magic item each. just make the hill giants not want to fight to the death and run away and get demoralized past a certain point of hp instead of them having lower hp. if you really want to lower the hp show them as distinctly injured(their hp max is not lower, they have just got into an argument with each other and beat each other up). gives the party an option to chase or let it slide. the disadvantage thing is cool
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May 21, 2020 19:38
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Awesome, thanks! Exactly what I was looking for then. Yeah, them being cowards and running away is a far better option than lowering their hp, agreed on that point. I've been reading up on the monster lore and now I really want to include some giants in my campaign. This seems like a good first step.
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May 21, 2020 19:52
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If they are kicking the giants asses too badly, you can always roll to see if they sober up when taking damage. It’ll give the opportunity to ramp up the danger when they think they have a lock on things. Also, have a chance for a drunk giant to puke on somebody. It’ll be funny.
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May 21, 2020 22:02
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Open Marriage Night posted:If they are kicking the giants asses too badly, you can always roll to see if they sober up when taking damage. It’ll give the opportunity to ramp up the danger when they think they have a lock on things. If the party is crushing it, you could pull a trick from the undead T-rex statblock and have them barf up some undead to attack the party that they had accidentally eaten earlier
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May 21, 2020 22:20
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change my name posted:If the party is crushing it, you could pull a trick from the undead T-rex statblock and have them barf up some undead to attack the party that they had accidentally eaten earlier I love that encounter. That was one of two times in my years of AL play where we had to run for our loving lives.
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May 21, 2020 22:25
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I'm playing my first ever campaign. Everybody including the DM is new to dnd. One thing I'm a bit confused about are material components with gold cost. From what I've read if the spell doesn't specifically say it consumes them then you keep them. That's fine and makes sense, but what I'm trying to get a feel for is how most DMs treat these components with stated value. Is the description itself more for flavor and you deduct the cost from your wallet or do they really expect you to find a shopkeep that sells "a gilded flower worth at least 300 gp"? I know there's no clear cut answer to this but I'm curious how other players handle this.
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May 21, 2020 22:36
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Tremors posted:I'm playing my first ever campaign. Everybody including the DM is new to dnd. One thing I'm a bit confused about are material components with gold cost. From what I've read if the spell doesn't specifically say it consumes them then you keep them. That's fine and makes sense, but what I'm trying to get a feel for is how most DMs treat these components with stated value. Is the description itself more for flavor and you deduct the cost from your wallet or do they really expect you to find a shopkeep that sells "a gilded flower worth at least 300 gp"? I know there's no clear cut answer to this but I'm curious how other players handle this. the answer is i absolutely, 100% do expect people to find these things - take the spell "raise dead", for example. it demands a diamond worth 500 gp. my rogue has 6 thousand dollars but was only able to find one diamond of an appropriate value before they set off to deal with a necromancer. my players want to cast this spell because they are of an appropriate level to cast it. in other words, each diamond can be thought of as a 1-up. the ability(or inability) to find these diamonds allows more control over the pacing and tension of the game. you can also do some nasty dm things like in an area the party is unable to teleport out of because of magic reasons, finding a diamond in a treasure hoard and appraising it as maybe worth 500 gold("your quick appraisal estimates it in the 400-700 price range") and being comfortable in your knowledge that the spell "raise dead" takes 1 hour to cast in a time sensitive mission
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May 21, 2020 23:28
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Components with listed prices have to be bought (like any other equipment, meaning finding an appropriate store) or found, as loot. If you're in the middle of a dungeon then you can't just swap out 300GP for a small diamond so you can cast Revivify. e:f;b
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May 21, 2020 23:42
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